


from the ashes

by HumanCustomsStillEludeMe



Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Death, Drabble, Gen, Injury, No Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 16:12:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18479761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HumanCustomsStillEludeMe/pseuds/HumanCustomsStillEludeMe
Summary: Berk burning, through the years.





	from the ashes

Berk burned at the hands of the dragons.  
Four hundred years old, and all the houses were new. No one cared anymore. If your house was destroyed, you rebuilt it. If your livestock was killed, you traded for new ones. Burns were common, but at some small mercy of the gods deaths were relatively rare.  
Houses were expendable. Berk was always changing.  
(the people, though, never did)

Berk did not burn, but her people did.  
Far from those welcome shores, lovingly crafted ships sunk in flames at the mercy of a malevolent, mountainous dragon. Seven lives were lost that day-a miracle, amid the hundred or more there that they did not lose more.  
The dragon burned as well, and a child burned with it. He lived, missing a limb but otherwise hole and safe and a Hero.  
(the taste of ash in his mouth never left him)

Berk burned once more, this time at the mercy of a madman enslaving powerful dragons.  
The siege ended and the buildings were rebuilt. No lives were lost, the damage was minor. No permanent harm came of those dark days.  
(the fear of loss faded oh so quickly)

Another madman, more enslaved dragons, but Berk did not burn. No, Berk was frozen.  
Their chief was killed by dragonfire that hadn't found a human target in five years. He was carried away by the sea in his tomb of flame, far from those welcome shores.  
The King was lost and an heir was found. Fire marked the sky with joy and not fear or pain, despite the lives lost and the countless buildings destroyed.  
(the dawn of an era and the beginning of the end)

Berk burned at the hands of the dragons.  
Enslaved with their own venom. Forced to do the bidding of a monster.  
Berk was not a place. It never was. The island may have burned, the buildings razed to the ground, but the people? The people were stubborn and proud. They refused to die, to give up, to succumb to war or disease.  
Four hundred years old, and all the houses were empty.  
Not a week old, and New Berk was already faced with tragedy on such a scale that hadn't been seen since the Scourge of Odin.  
The dragons were gone, and Berk did not burn again.  
(for a thousand years, they lived in isolation, and for a thousand years, Berk did not burn.)

**Author's Note:**

> Notre Dame is burning and I feel like this is all I can do.  
> I've been crying all day because of it and I needed to do something to relieve everything I've been feeling all day.


End file.
